Page 4 of In Love With a Master (Interview With a Master 2)

Leticia picked up her glass, twisting it between her long fingers to study the pinpricks of bubbles as they drifted up through the pale amber wine. She took a tentative sip and then raised an eyebrow in pleasant surprise.

“Very good.”

She took another sip and I watched her soft lips with fascination. The directness of my gaze caught Leticia off guard and she blushed under its intensity. She set the glass back down on the table, sensing the change in my mood with some intuitive feminine understanding. She hooded her eyes and glanced back at me, the smile melting from her lips. In an instant the womanly poise disappeared and she became agitated as a schoolgirl. She plucked at the hem of her skirt nervously with her fingers, unable to hold my gaze.

Leticia shifted in her seat, and the neckline of her blouse slid off one shoulder so that I could see the strap of her bra and the soft, perfect skin there. Her blonde hair broke like a wave then rippled with the small movements of her body. She used the back of her hand to brush loose strands from her forehead then looked up at me, her smile back in place.

“There is so much I want to talk to you about tonight, Leticia,” I tasted the wine then set the glass aside. “There are so many things I want to tell you, and so many things I want to ask you.”

Leticia pressed her hand gently to the skin of her chest and her fingers fluttered lightly across her throat, then she leaned forward.

“I am a good listener, Jonah. If this is about Tiny, if this is about your illness… it doesn’t matter. I’m happy to be here and I’m happy to listen so you can talk.” Her head lifted, and I saw that her lips were soft and moist, her eyes sparkling bright.

She laid one hand on the table, her fingers extended towards me in some kind of a gesture to reach out to me, or maybe an appeal to connect. She had the long, slim fingers of an artist or a piano player. Her nails were manicured, but not long. I looked from her hand into her eyes, and then lowered my gaze again. Leticia’s blouse gaped open and my eye caught the silky sheen of her skin where the beginning of one breast pushed against the lace trim that edged the cup of her bra. I looked for an instant before I reached out to her, and our fingers touched in a tiny jolt of electricity.

The shock of it spread like ripples through my body. All the emotions I had held so close suddenly came toppling back upon me as a deep yearning ache for this woman.

I could feel the warmth of her skin and see the tension of her body in the way she held herself. I was tense too. It was tension that stretched out between us that seemed to spark and crackle in the air. It was a tension borne of anticipation… of things to be said that had been held in check for too long.

“It is about Tiny and it is about my illness,” I nodded. “But it’s also about us, Leticia.” I said it calmly, in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. I didn’t move at all. There was silence – just faint noises far away in the background and a thumping in my chest.

Suddenly Mrs. Hortez came bustling back into the kitchen and hovered over the table like an unwelcomed waiter. Leticia withdrew her hand, and the shutters came down on her emotions. She looked up at Mrs. Hortez with a charming smile.

“This is amazing, Mrs. Hortez,” Leticia said. She suddenly became fascinated by the food spread around us. She heaped Paella onto her plate. “I love Spanish food,” Leticia enthused with a forkful of the colorful rice dish close to her mouth. “You must give me the recipe before I go.” She was silent then, nibbling at her food with perfect white teeth and dabbing at her lips with the tip of her tongue.

I am not a lover of food – I eat because I have to. I like simple meals, generally of food types I can recognize like steak and vegetables. What Mrs. Hortez had created was some kind of explosion of food that I could neither identify nor enjoy. But Leticia did. She ate with appreciation, and I reveled silently in watching her eat. Each dish seemed to evoke new gasps of appreciation, and new moans of delight. She was a good cook herself and perhaps she had a depth of appreciation for the food that escaped me.

While Leticia turned her full attention to the food, I sat back quietly musing and sipped at my wine. I watched Leticia carefully. She seemed unaware of my scrutiny. Her preoccupation with eating while Mrs. Hortez looked on was total, but beneath the façade I wondered what dark, shadowy emotions smoldered there.

The last rays of afternoon light slowly burned out, and the candle on the table guttered and flickered, throwing a small pool of light across Leticia’s soft features. I sat back in the gloom until Mrs. Hortez drifted out of the room, and then I spoke at last so that my voice seemed to come from out of the darkness.

“Since Tiny’s death I have spent a lot of time thinking – a lot of time examining my life and my soul. It has been a very dark time for me, Leticia.”

She nodded. “I have tried to reach out to you, Jonah. I tried my hardest to let you know that you didn’t have to go through your illness alone and that you didn’t have to mourn Tiny’s death alone.”

I leaned forward suddenly so that the candlelight picked up the edges and dark shadows of my face. “I know you did… but I wasn’t ready until now, Leticia. I had to discover how black the darkness could be before I was able to reach out to you.”

Leticia’s face showed sudden empathy and compassion. “And is that why you called me, Jonah?” There was the faintest trace of hope in her voice and in her eyes. “Are you starting to emerge from that darkness?”

I smiled, but it was a wintery, bleak gesture with no trace of humor. “I want to, Leticia. That’s why I needed to talk to you tonight,” my voice dropped suddenly to a despairing whisper. “I am looking for the light…”

Chapter 7.

Leticia carried the bottle of wine and her glass and followed me out of the kitchen. I paused at a liquor cabinet in the foyer for a full bottle of whisky and a crystal tumbler. Leticia raised an eyebrow.

“This looks serious,” she said with a hint of a smile.

I glanced over my shoulder. “It is,” I said.

Leticia slung her handbag over her shoulder and we drifted towards the staircase.

“Are we heading to your office?”

I froze for an instant. “No,” I said. The office had become a dark and dangerous place for me, filled with corrosive, bitter memories that seemed to invade the walls like the stains of cigar smoke.

“We will talk in the training room,” I said.

We went up the stairs in silence, my mood thoughtful. Leticia followed me to the training room door. I pushed it open and led her into the room.

I set the bottle of whisky down on the small table in the middle of the room. It was a simple piece of furniture, just a few feet square with wooden legs and a soft, polished wooden surface. There was a single chair. Leticia sat at the table and arranged the wine glass and the bottle at her elbow.

I went into the study and found an old, straight-backed chair with a decorative, padded cushion and a padded backrest of the same material. I carried the chair into the training room and set it across the table from where Leticia sat.

The training room was a good size, with just a few pieces of furniture and a window. It was the room I used when instructing submissive women in the skills of sexual pleasure. Leticia had been here before, and I saw her eyes drift to the dressing table where the handcuffs and toys were stored. Atop the dressing table was a large, oval mirror and Leticia saw me watching her in its reflection. A soft flush of heated color spread across her cheeks. She turned her head and looked back at me and I knew by the hectic flash in her eyes that she was remembering the moment I had cuffed and then kissed her.

I reached across the table and poured more wine into Leticia’s glass, then I unscrewed the cap from the bottle of whisky and poured until the tumbler was half full. I set the bottle down but didn’t screw the cap back on. I swallowed the contents of the tumbler in a single gulp and winced as the alcohol and the fumes burned the back of my throat. I set the glass back down on the table and the sound of it was loud in the silence.

/> “Leticia, do you believe in God?”

Leticia flinched with startled surprise. She shook her head, not in denial, but in confusion. “What makes you ask?”

I leaned forward earnestly. “Because I want to know.”

---